


HEROES COME BACK!!! (A RUMBLEBIRDS remix)

by EgregiousDerp



Category: Naruto
Genre: (Lee in particular’s in love with absolutely everything), (and then suddenly it isn’t), AND A WHOLE CAN OF WHOOP-ASS, Also Kushina Lives, BAD TOURISM LEVEL: TEAM GAI, Because I live here now but this fic is like. Neighbors, ETERNAL RIVALS PUTTING THE ETERNAL IN RIVALS (what?), FAILED WISDOM CHECK LEVEL: ROCK LEE, GOD’S PERFECT IDIOT PUNCHING STUFF IN THE FACE, Gai’s a Phoenix, ILL-ADVISED SHENANIGANS, Kakashi’s a Thunderbird, M/M, MYTHIC-LEVEL GAY CHICKEN, Magic!AU, Non-Magical Lee, Rumblebirds Remix, Some tags to be added as we go, THRILLING ADVENTURE, Team Gai’s probably in love with one another but bad at acting on it, Team ‘Disaster Bisexuals’ and the world’s greatest gay dad, Team “Diplomacy is my dump skill. How bad could it be?”, Temporary Character Death, Time - Freeform, a shitton of one-sideds actually, all the phobias but they’re all getting punched, also see chapter notes for safety details as we go, and here’s where things get FUNKY (funky funky), and make it slish-slash!, and the kids don’t know any of it because OBLIVITY, background pairing roulette, by FRIENDSHIP!, by a dude with the perfect stats for a Lawful Good Barbarian, elemental nature switchups, god tier jinchuruki, learning how to slow burn from an actual god damn Phoenix, prepare for genre whiplash!, slow burn like Sylvia Plath waiting for the oven to warm up, space, that’s the most basic premise in a nutshell, the metaphorical invention of the “Monk” class, they’re also in doomed love probably, “HELP. ALL OF MY FRIENDS ARE HOT”: the POV, “Is this SD enough?”, “the Best Fight of All is the Fight Against Fate!” (TM)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 04:23:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20383624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EgregiousDerp/pseuds/EgregiousDerp
Summary: Lee believed the measure of a true hero wasn’t in the story going on forever.He also didn’t believe any good story of adventure belonged exclusively to the Hero.You were only as good as what you stood for, and what you protected.Was that not why people needed stories in the first place?





	1. Prologue — Back to the Earth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kurgaya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kurgaya/gifts).

> So. Technically this hits at least two prompts for the GaaLee fest.  
The first one I’m admitting to is the Obvious Day Six “Fantasy/Magic AU”. (Which is a little late but only because I worked late that day and then realized belatedly I had to hand switch over all the italics if I ever wanted it to work.)
> 
> I’ve got well over 60k of this on my burner and it needs stitchwork to connect scenes in a lot of places (because I write out of order and sometimes surprise connections happen) but it’s...pretty committed.
> 
> This is also the most fucking frenetic thing I have ever written just so we’re clear but I’m hoping peeps still give me a chance.

_For Cams. (This wouldn’t exist without you. Quite literally.)_

—o—O—o—

“_I_  
Know you appear  
Vivid at my side,  
Denying you sprang out of my head,  
Claiming you feel  
Love fiery enough to prove flesh real,  
Though it’s quite clear  
All your beauty, all your wit, is a gift, my dear,  
From me.”  
—“Soliloquy of the Solipsist”, Sylvia Plath

—o—O—o—

  
It was said that behind every great Hero was the cunning of a mighty Mage!

...So it was said, anyway.

Often by Gai-Sensei. At boisterous volume.

Rock Lee was no mighty Mage by any stretch of the imagination, even if he often took notes on the lessons of a mighty Mage.

He liked to think he would happily settle for being a hero.

If a Mage was behind every true hero, then standing between every mage and their enemy was a Hero ready to protect them.

Lee had always liked those stories.

More than a story, he liked a challenge. Lee chose to try to see the bright side of life no matter the difficulty.

He hoped if there were stories about his friends someday, maybe his name would appear as well, if only in passing.

————

Passing was no light thing.

————

Every story had an ending somewhere.

————

“Lee- _don’t_,” Neji gasped, paler than usual despite the fresh blood on his mouth.

Tears sizzled in Lee’s eyes as he burned with the seventh gate, life flickering from his fingertips in beads of sweat. He could feel how he broke the branches sticking up from Neji’s chest like antlers, placing his hand in the wound, inside the raw, seeping, Hyuuga network of magic. Like this was just an accident of the shadows of the Nara forest. Like he’d been caught playing with the deer-

(Neji never plays with the deer. Neji never will-)

The feeling is distant beneath power and _pain_, pain so blinding it feels like being burned alive, like the water itself is being flushed from his body leaving a husk. Enough to leave him gasping for breath.

Lee has to make the effort not to snap Neji’s ribs through the blinding blue of his raw life flying past, burning up like so much magical fire. He’s snapping branches with his fingertips, lifting Neji free with so little effort he might be made of paper.

Neji _should_ feel like something in his arms, but he doesn’t. Not even the heavy tail of his hair brushing Lee’s knees feels like anything.

He barely notices even Neji’s white-knuckled hands wrapped around his wrist.

That wrist was once crushed by the magic sand of the High Mage of the wind country. It was remade by the highest healing magic in the land, a riddle and an enigma, but it has never _stopped_ hurting, and neither has his foot. Pins and needles when he stands still. Like the sand’s still buzzing around him, day and night.

Both forms of pain are nothing compared to the Seventh gate burning the years off his life in exchange for speed, for _power_.

Neji’s grip is _nothing_.

Neji’s off-hand trying to beat pulses of magic into his chest is nothing.

Lee thinks, he’s never heard his friend’s voice take on that hysterical tone. Neji’s _Byakugan_ is Time Magic of the highest order, he’s supposed to see everything coming.

His hands are supposed to be magic-halting weapons fine-tuned by genius. Neji plays magic like a man might play a harp, thrumming or stilling it as he wills.

He’s trying to block the flow of life and magic through the gates, Lee realizes as Neji’s palm pounds his chest once. Twice. _Thrice_. He’s never seen Neji unable to stop magic before.

“Lee- _go_.”

Lee looks up at the rain of clay spiders starting down from the heavens through the veil of pain and power wreathing him.

And he looks at Neji, whose magic is bulging the veins about his eyes like a panicked animal, struggling to move, to speak, to control limbs that have already lost too much blood to be persuaded to support him, let alone _fight_.

The arrogance, the contempt that both marked him and shielded Neji from making connections has all dropped away now.

He’s _scared_.

He’d told Lee to take TenTen and _run_.

His fingers are white-knuckled on Lee’s arms again.

Lee smiles.

He _had_ run.

He remembers like it was long ago and thinks he’s finally realizing something.

Begging for something like that wasn’t a thing you did if all connections were pointless, if you knew your fate and how meaningless it was to fight it.

Despite it all, Neji _cared_ about them both. He’d been ready to _die_ for them all, so they had a chance to save someone they all cared about.

If Lee’s saving anyone now, it’s because of the examples laid before him.

Neji’s truly a Mighty Mage, he thinks.

Lee kicks a _Konoha Whirlwind_ that seems to take no effort at all, the wind of it bending and breaking trees, knocking away clay spiders that explode all around them.

He lands with Neji still held in his arms, weighing next to nothing, the ease and scope of the power terrifying.

“I will _not_.” Lee says, gasping against the jarring dizziness of the impact which jars him and yet doesn’t jar him. “I am sorry. But- please! Let me- do this.”

Lee knocks his forehead against the curse etched into the other’s, scarring cut down to the bone of the Seer’s skull, magic burned into the nerves of the backs of his enchanted eyes so they can’t be stolen, so that he’s marked forever as a servant, a tool of fate. Lee closes those eyes with his fingertips, Neji’s labored, shallow breathing fluttering against his palm like a bird.

“Lee-“

“_I made a promise._” Lee whispers, drawing up all his resolve.

His friend’s eyelashes are damp. It could be the water coming off of Lee. It could not be.

It doesn’t really matter if it is or isn’t.

“It is going to be okay,” Lee promises, so close he can feel Neji breathe, can feel him panic, can feel the pain jerk through his body as Lee pushes fingertips through flesh, into his friend’s wounds.

(The dim pressure of Neji’s hands clawing at his wrist mean nothing, they _feel_ like nothing. The strangled noise of shock bordering on _betrayal_ breaking from Neji’s throat hurts more.)

He feels the panicked pulsing of Neji’s heart kick into overdrive as Lee’s fingers push between his ribs, through muscle and between bone, the slippery, panicked beating. The gasp of air.

“_Lee_-!”

Lee opens the eighth gate, sending the locked-away raw magic of his life into his friend’s body.

He thinks of Sai as he does so, Sai the magical marvel that he is. Spell given soul, made _flesh _from will.

He knows it should be _possible_, though he doesn’t know how.

He prays Gai-sensei’s teachings will make a way. Will is predominant in all of them.

He hopes his will is _strong_ enough as he releases the last restraint on his power.

(Was it meant to be so easy...?)

He thinks he hears Neji _scream_, though it’s distant compared to the similarly distant sensation of clay missiles hitting the heat afterimage of eight wings rising from his body.

Lee’s had a good twenty years worth of magic bottled up inside of him with no release.

That magic hits Neji’s chest like a _grenade_.

The Seer’s skin and bone knit together with a wrenching sound under his fingertips, punching a shockwave back through the space pathway Lee took.

For just a moment the shadows in the forest around him blink out of existence like the flickering of a great eye, then reappear.

Radiant green light paints the inside of Neji’s mouth, and behind his blank eyes like the glow from the pupil of an animal in the dark.

He screams only for a moment, then goes limp, Lee’s lambent magic sizzling pathways down his burning fingertips.

Neji’s curse _burns away _beneath his fingertips as fire rises from Lee’s back, cracking his skin, staggering him.

His fingers make a sucking sound as he pulls them free from his friend’s chest, five angry marks like fingertips set around his heart, bloodless, cauterized by magic.

His body falls limp.

But Neji doesn’t combust. Neji doesn’t fade away.

He’s _alive_.

Safe.

Lee staggers, dropping Neji into the leaves of the forest floor, fingertips hardly even a sensation. His skin cracks, bleeds _steam_. Whatever he’d thought the eighth gate would feel like he’d never expected anything like this. He’d known he would be in _pain_.

He also had known it wouldn’t last long.

He remembers this dimly as as he fixes reeling eyes upwards.

His skin cracks and burns in patches.

He _howls_.

The clay dragon in the sky falters, flapping desperately to stay aloft, clay creatures spitting forth from its mouth.

It’s retreating, Lee realizes, trying to buy time for the Rogue Mage on its back to jam clay into the mouth on his chest.

Lee closes with the creature with a single flap of eight wings, clay and flesh, and magic burning away before the Earth Mage can even _scream_.

He doesn’t even _hit_ him before the explosion bounces off of his aura, a tremendous fireball that can be seen from anywhere in the forest, and something falls into place in Lee’s head.

He thinks he understands what he needs to do as lumps of clay begin to patter to the forest floor, burning all around the fallen body in the leaves.

Neji’s _alive_, Lee thinks. A singular thing to cling to.

He will live to walk the Nara forest and crush flower petals between his fingers. He will exist to drink in sunlight with his eerie mirror eyes.

His foresight will have him wake before anything terrible can befall him.

He has to believe that because there’s no _time_. No time to do more for Neji than he has.

Burning Feathers break from Lee’s skin as he gasps, briefly blinded by the pain of it as he rises, and rises, and rises, gaining speed, each one burning like an eye, red red eyes on green flame.

He feels very little anymore, little beyond the sheer pain and the _radiance_ of raw magic—a lifetime’s magic condensed into a few short minutes like a pulsar.

He’s felt nothing like it.

He knows he will feel nothing like it ever again.

All he has is _will_ keeping him going. Will beyond even conscious thought, hanging on like a man on a mountainside who knows the moment he moves he will fall.

His will has only one object left.

Somewhere, dimly beyond the pain, he’s aware of a single sandstone pendant rattling against his chest with the speed of wind as he beats eight wings and breaks sound with a crack like a tree splitting under lightning.

There’s no time to hesitate.

He has only a matter of moments to find a hideout he knows is there, to _stop_ it all-

Because positive outlooks aside, this is also the story of how Rock Lee died saving his friends.

————

Lee believed the measure of a true hero wasn’t in the story going on forever, at any rate. He didn’t die unhappily.

He also didn’t believe any good story of adventure belonged exclusively to the Hero.

You were only as good as what you stood for, and what you protected.

Was that not why people needed stories in the first place?

————


	2. 1 — Hard to Kill

“_A tadpole doesn’t know_  
it's gonna grow bigger.  
It just swims,  
and figures limbs  
are for frogs.

_People don’t know_  
the power they hold.  
They just sing hymns,  
and figure saving  
is for god.”

—“Tadpoles” by Andrea Gibson

  
—o—O—o—

“_Aaaaaaaaaah_!”

About a year before he opened the eighth gate and performed his first and last feat of magic, Rock Lee hurtled into a secondhand weapons shop ready to lay down his life for a precious friend with a kick that sent a trio of tower shields clanging over like thunder into a suit of armor.

Lee jumped at the noise, then rallied again, hands raised high.

“TenTen, what is it?! What ever is the matter?!”

“_Look_ at these matched knives!” TenTen crooned, completely undistracted by noise or by Lee’s thoroughly dynamic entry. “I can’t believe they’d put such an adorable set on saaaaaaale!”

Lee stared.

They were definitely Knives.

Lee wasn’t as particular about different kinds and qualities of Knives as his companion was to say the least. He didn’t use them much. No matter how magical the object, they seemed...impersonal somehow. Not at all like a passionate meeting of fists and bodies where one laid their hot-blooded life and very youth on the line!

Two other patrons of the shop lowered their hands slowly in the background. One lowered a cloud of knives that tucked back into a shapeless robe, the other, who had a plate of service to the Earth Kingdom stopped glowing with a mantle of bubbling acid.

Lee didn’t particularly notice either one of them, round eyes fixed unblinkingly on his teammate bent over the “gently used” table.

(At least he thought that was what it said. Lee had never been terribly great at reading. His letters tended to go all squiggly even in Ifran, and the sign was in _Akadi. _Which Lee didn’t actually _speak_. But there was a helm with an ominous dent in it and a broken battleaxe with half a handle that looked like it still had dried blood on it and both had price tags so he had to assume this was the table for the exceedingly cheap and possibly _cursed_ items.)

“Are you...in danger?” Lee ventured hopefully, blinking owlishly in the dark of the shop after the bright sun.

“Sure I’m in danger! Can’t you just feel the subtlety of the scriptwork on the returning charm, Lee? It’s _too_ good!”

Lee winced as TenTen began nuzzling the hilts of the daggers and sighing, “_Oooooh whoever let you go didn’t know what they were missing~ I know~ I know~_“

The daggers were emblazoned with sinewy red dragons like little tongues of flame, Lee noticed, wondering against hope if maybe they belonged to some mighty creature’s hoard. Or at the very least would respond!to TenTen’s affections.

There were stories of items so powerful they gained their own life, and their own sentience. TenTen besides had a _gift._

Still, gift or no, Idle wondering completely failed to manifest an all-powerful magical threat on the spot, despite Lee’s hoping. And despite their tongues, the daggers remained silent.

“They are certainly very shiny.” Lee said, because he was a dutiful friend and TenTen was very precious to him, and Weapons were very precious to TenTen for some reason.

TenTen ignored him.

There were little tears starting in the corners of her eyes as she picked up a mace half the weight of a man, the pair of knives still nestled in the crook of her elbow like a baby.

“I...am going to go find Neji and make certain he is in no trouble.” Lee mumbled, shoulders drooping.

TenTen didn’t even seem to hear him excusing himself from the weapons shop after trying to get the armor and the shields to stand back up. (Neither wanted to, and he eventually left them in a heap with an apology to them and anyone else who might be listening, or maybe to the objects themselves because you never knew.)

There was certainly no adventure to be had here.

————

Lee picked through the market without too much trouble.

The Wind Country’s people were a stoic lot, and not at all inclined to moving out of the way, the Villagers of the Sand especially. They didn’t raise their voices or their heads more than was necessary except for those who had something to sell, glaring with fixed expressions, and not answering even direct questions.

The winds of Suna were dry enough to crack Lee’s lips, and they always seemed full of sand, stinging his cheeks and eyes as he walked, but Lee was quick, and light on his feet, and good at ducking out of the way of people who otherwise wouldn’t move out of his. He fanned himself with a hand against the dry heat, dodging the grim-faced natives while he looked for the long tail of his companion’s hair.

If people glared at his outlandish appearance and brightly colored suit, his bird-like deft movements through the crowd, Lee was oblivious to it as ever. His was a single-minded focus.

A mage was only as powerful as the will and youthful passion to achieve the dreams deep in his heart!

Being a mage required purity of focus!

Lee’s dream was to be a mighty Hero without magic, and to make _friends_. Companions worth adventuring with!

Every once in a while Lee saw someone wearing the metal plate emblazoned with the Hourglass of service to the nation of Wind and it brought a smile to his lips, a little thrill of excitement.

It would be _wonderful_ to see the magic of the Wind country in action again. Lee wasn’t the kind to hold a grudge. He’d never lost a childlike sense of wonder at even the most mundane and commonplace acts of magic in the world around him, and the magic of the Wind country was very different from the Fire’s.

Not that _any_ magic was common for Lee.

————

He kept looking.

————

Another thing the people of Suna apparently didn’t do was call out the name of their precious friend and Rival in the marketplace.

————

“Nejiiiiiiiiiii! Yoo-hoo! _Nejiiiiiiiiiii_!”

————

He found Neji finally, in an herb stall, tucked a ways from the common market, double-taking as he caught sight of Neji’s pale sleeves, and nearly bumped into a slow-moving old man with a pronounced stoop.

“Ah! Excuse me! Neji! I am glad to have caught you at last before some adventure could befall you without the might of Rock Lee at your side!”

Neji didn’t look up at Lee’s gesticulating or his thumbs-up posing. He was used to Lee’s antics, frowning intently at a basket high on the cloth wall of the shop.

Lee stared at it, catching the crinkling of the Seer’s foresight active around his eyes.

“Neji?” Lee said, staring from him to the basket. “Is something the matter?”

“Yes.” Neji murmured.

“_What_-?!” Lee cried, jumping and nearly smacking a woman with his arm. “What is it? Some deadly foe out to catch us off our guard?!” Lee tried to hide his eagerness.

“Something is very wrong indeed…” Neji said in a hushed tone, pausing for a moment before adding, “Tea of this fine quality would _never_ sell for such a low price in the Leaf! What could they possibly know...?” Neji muttered while Lee’s enthusiasm faltered and he shook his head frantically, trying to stave off an hour long haggling session with the shopkeeper in vain. “There must be some _reason_. Lee.”

Lee jumped at the flash of Neji’s pupilless eyes.

“_Aah_?”

That sound was apparently all the reaction Neji needed.

“We’ll get to the bottom of this immediately.”

“Oh, but I could not-!”

“Lee!” Neji snapped.

————

Rock Lee was a would-be hero. His will was forged in iron!

But...

He hated to disappoint his friends, and there was nothing so persuasive as determined _passion_!

His spine snapped to attention as he snapped off a salute.

“Yes, Neji! I will do my best, Neji!”

————

Two elaborate disguises, one skit, and one well-placed _Gentle Handshake_ later, Neji not only had a bushel of Advieh Pu-Ehr, but also the name and delivery route of the merchant’s tea distributer.

For Neji, this was maybe adventure of a sort, but it certainly wasn’t the kind _Lee_ had hoped for.

He groaned, slumping under the weight of the basket as they left the herb stall.

————

He daydreamed of a great trio of ogres stomping up from the sand and laying into the city with their clubs and tempers while Neji idly crushed a dried rosebud between his fingers and smiled his faint smile of self-satisfaction.

If the Ogres happened to look like Chouji and his teammates back home, Chouji never had to know.

Chouji might have acquired a palate for things that couldn’t talk back, like many of his family, and Lee might have seen Shikamaru doze with their head propped in the demon’s lap like they didn’t have a care in the world while Ino braided flowers into both their hair, but Chouji was still an _Oni_ when it all came down to it and Lee maybe a little guiltily would have jumped at the chance to test his strength against a real Man-eating Demon.

Well. Man-eating in _theory_...

A hand latched around the back of Lee’s collar just in time to keep him from day-dreamingly wandering into the street, almost bumping into-

Was that the same old man with the hunchback?

How long did it take one old man to cross the street?!

Neji hissed his name in an exasperated way and Lee exclaimed his apologies to the citizen of Suna, bowing at the waist and almost spilling Neji’s basket of tea all over the road while his rival rebuked him soundly.

The old man barely even seemed to notice, glowering slightly as he limped along. But he said nothing.

Internally, Lee swore he’d do five thousand pushups in penance- no, ten thousand! barely noticing Neji steering him back with an elbow around his neck.

————

The Wind Country was a land of great Magic, just like the Fire, branching into hybrid seats just like the Leaf Branch of Mages Neji, TenTen, and Lee all bore allegiance to in Konoha.

The village of Suna itself wore a flickering barrier of magic wind protecting the shifting slab of sandstone its people had carved their lives into. Conical stone houses and stone walls and stone faces set grimly against the elements.

Suna had once been a poor nation, with few resources, producing nomadic Mages, and whispered-about magic assassins wandering in silk balloons and on skiffs powered by tamed breezes with great red sails. Even their greater cities tended to the small side, and wandered, drifting slowly over the shifting sands over the course of years.

It was also said the Wind Country’s Magicians could turn anything into _gold._

Air.

_Blood_.

Lee has yet to see any of them do it and got cuffed by Neji once already for asking a merchant if he could with a harsh explanation that it was clearly a _metaphor_.

Which maybe it was.

Metaphors had never been Lee’s strongest suit either, really.

Suna was also the home of the biggest _bargain market_ in the five nations.

Strange collectibles, rare ingredients, and magic items of dubious lineage were all for sale, and the Shopkeepers of Suna would make a sale by any means short of throatcutting. It was a cultural thing apparently. Or so Neji told him. The first sale of the day was apparently especially crucial and lucky. Which suited Lee just fine since he naturally tended to wake before the sun did. (TenTen didn’t.)

He was also very pleased with his bartering skill to be fair.

Lee had left many merchants _stupefied_ by his prowess at bargaining so early in the morning, with his outrageously bold and large numbers so much higher than their own! He liked the opportunity to make them both lucky. But besides that he liked the Wind Country’s food. It was almost as spicy and salty as Gai-sensei’s famous youth curries!

He _liked_ the Wind country.

Lee liked a lot of things.

————

The three of them had spent two days in the market so far, sampling its wonders.

Lee had accompanied his friends hoping for adventure. Bandits, brigands, strange evil sorcerers and their monsters-!

Neji and TenTen, it was finally starting to dawn on Lee, had actually come to shop.

_Only_ to shop.

They barely seemed to notice they were in another country. They weren’t even here to try to exotic foods, and what was the point of _that?_

————

Lee wasn’t here to shop, but that didn’t excuse him from trying to challenge himself.

On their third day in Suna, he told himself to find the spiciest dish in the market and win a round of passionate bartering for it!

If something nagged at the back of his mind as he made profuse apologies to Neji and to just about every bystander he could find, Lee ignored it.

————

Even loaded down with Neji’s basket of tea, no fewer than six new Knives of Eternal Return, and with the inside of his mouth finally starting to break back through its numbness while his insides told him maybe it was time to find the closest public restroom, Lee couldn’t think of the afternoon as a _really _suitable training exercise.

He slumped watching his friends animatedly discuss their bargains.

What he hoped for could not be bought in foreign markets!

Ah! If only!

Lee craved _adventure_ and challenges of the unknown! He wished to understand magic though he couldn’t use it!

And most of all, he craved _connection_.

Lee wanted _purpose_-!

“Uh. Lee?”

Lee blinked and lowered the fist he hadn’t realized he’d clenched and raised, wiping away his tears.

“Oh! It is nothing! Please do not worry, TenTen! It is only the sand in my eyes! Ah. Or perhaps residual dragon scale pepper!”

Neji and TenTen exchanged a look.

Neji scoffed. “What is it this time?”

“I got you _nunchucks_,” TenTen pouted.

They were indeed _splendid_ nunchucks, Lee reflected. They had phoenixes gilded across the wood of the handles. In the hands of a mighty mage they would light in splendid spirals of flame- just like Gai-sensei’s powerful kicks!

But Lee wasn’t a mighty mage.

He put up his hands.

“I am most grateful! My heart soars to be spending time with my dear friends on this mission of the heart! ...but...”

Neji and TenTen exchanged another look, and smiled suddenly at one another.

“But?” TenTen prompted.

“But...I had dearly hoped...for an adventure!” Lee sighed, “A foreign land filled with strange magic? You would think there would be at least _one_ terrible monster, or one beautiful woman in need of rescue-“

“Ugh. Only _you_ would hope we’d run into something awful, Lee.” TenTen sighed. That she hadn’t stopped smiling kept Lee from apologizing too hard.

“We completed our mission,” Neji said, blank eyes presumably looking at him. It always seemed impolite to ask to be sure.

(Lee had made the mistake of asking if he could see at all when they first met, and Neji had broken two of his fingers with a twist of his palm before answering with “_Yes. Very well._” He’d vowed to be best friends with him ever since.

At the very least, they were most passionate rivals. Lee would take what he could get.)

“Wasn’t that dangerous enough?” Neji continued while Lee resisted the urge to wave a hand in front of his eyes and see if the milky, mirror-silver shifted around at all, or to make faces at his own distorted reflections in Neji’s eyes.

Some days the mirrors were concave and Lee’s face loomed huge. Others they were convex and Lee’s head was nothing but a tiny dark point.

Today his face looked like a pale, bug-eyed balloon.

Neji’s eyes shifted, and his thin eyebrows ticked downwards.

Right, Lee had been staring too long.

It was not _appropriate_ to become lost in your Eternal Rival’s Magical Eyes. Neji had said as much on many occasions!

Lee cleared his throat.

“The mission was Most invigorating, Yes! But it was also four days ago!”

“You beat a record getting here.” TenTen pointed out. “Isn’t that something?”

“_Aah_ but that does not count either if this village is drifting closer to the land of fire!” Lee jabbed a finger into the air and nearly hit his hand on an awning. “It is no longer enough to beat my old record if the distance is reduced! That is like cheating!”

“I told you Suna was closer.” Neji muttered.

“You’re on _Lee’s_ side?”

Neji didn’t answer.

TenTen snorted, exchanging another look with him like he’d said something funny. Lee went on anyway, warming to his subject as he stared into the bazaar. His companions gave one another looks he barely understood all the time! Surely their bond of friendship was a wonderful thing! He didn’t let it bother him.

“if Gai-sensei were here I am certain he would have a vigorous training exercise for us all!”

“Gai-sensei’s busy,” Neji replied, the slight frown under the band of service telling Lee it was probably something Neji had foreseen. Possibly his entire argument had been foreseen. Truly Neji was patient sometimes!

It must be wonderful to see one’s future so clearly.

TenTen sighed, stretching her arms behind her head.

A little peek of suntanned skin rode up under her shirt.

Lee reminded himself not to stare too long at that either.

It was no more appropriate to be mesmerized by the muscles of your other dearest friend’s stomach and back than it was to become mesmerized by the other’s eyes! And TenTen certainly had eyes! Very pretty dark ones, too! He would gaze into them for a perfectly appropriate period of time at the next opportunity or he would do _five hundred kicks_ when they got back to their borrowed room at the hostel!

“Jeez, Lee, Gai-sensei’s allowed to have a vacation too and it’s a good thing he is. The woman at the tea shop said there’s been a freak storm out in the desert for almost three days.” TenTen sighed. But she was frowning now anyway, asking Neji more quietly, “Do you have any idea when he’ll be back? They were talking about flash floods. I don’t want to think of Gai-sensei out there.”

An image of his illustrious teacher being swept away by a torrent of muddy water flashed in Lee’s mind’s eye. Gai-sensei with his great fire magic rendered useless as he cried for help, the green of his suit vanishing beneath a torrent of sandy brown, _gone forever_.

Lee buried his face in his hands and shook his head hard to clear it.

“Ah! Please be safe, Gai-sensei!” He wailed into his fingers, sending a prayer out into the universe.

Lee wasn’t what you would call religious by any means, but he had hope.

Gai-sensei was mighty! Surely he would be alright!

The veins around Neji’s eyes intensified, throbbing up to the surface.

His gift always looked painful to Lee. He’d seen the Seer rubbing his temples or the bridge of his nose after he’d used it too long. Or fail to pick out visual details on things after, even on simple things. So he thinks using it for too long blurs even his regular vision, and probably gives him headaches.

He thinks, sometimes, the time magic hurts his friend, and wishes he had a talent for healing at least, or could do something other than offer to rub Neji’s shoulders or forehead for him.

(Which Neji often turns down because apparently Lee’s grip is a bit..._forceful_. Lee takes any chance he can get for physical contact with the people he likes and he likes Neji and TenTen a lot.)

Neji’s foresight retreats, quicksilver mirrors of his eyes shifting inwards while Lee watches. He frowns.

”Well?” TenTen asks.

“My _Byakugan_ indicates it’s most likely we will all be reunited by tomorrow evening.”

“_Aah get here soon, Gai-sensei.._.” Lee whispered to the universe, rallying with an excited little punch to the air, “We must train with even greater discipline in his absence!”

“Ugh. It’s my first vacation in _two years_, Lee, enough with the _training_. Sometimes a girl just wants to relax and buy cute weapons.” TenTen groans.

Neji just frowned thoughtfully.

“There was a dumpling shop on the other side of town.” He says.

Lee rallies immediately.

TenTen’s eyes narrow.

“A dumpling shop like a real dumpling shop or..._you know_?”

Neji’s eyes narrow.

“I could eat many dumplings!” Lee cried happily, not at all sure why the existence of dumplings was a cause for dispute, jabbing a finger. “Neji! I challenge you to an eating contest!”

Neji ducks out of the way of his gesticulation without even looking.

“No.” He says.

“_Oh come on!_”

“No,” Neji repeats flatly.

The thing building between his companions seems to have loosened.

“Give it a _rest_ you two. I’m too tired. I’ve been on my feet all day-“ TenTen groans.

Lee threw aside the bags.

(“_Hey_-“)

“Do not worry, TenTen! You and Neji may rest here and I will buy dinner for us all! If I cannot bring delicious dumplings back in one half hour I will run _five hundred laps_ around the entire village of Suna!”

“Lee, nobody asked you to-“

“Ah! A better challenge! Neji! I will be back before you can boil water in this kettle and make a pot of your delicious new tea! Then we may all have a wondrous eating contest together!”

Lee produced the battered iron kettle from the depths of his knapsack. (_Always be prepared!_ That was what Gai-sensei told him! Lee nodded to himself at the wisdom of his absent teacher.)

“Seriously?” TenTen grumbled, though the corners of her lips twitched upwards just a little. “It only takes a minute if you use magic, Lee.”

“I think he means without magic,” Neji murmurs.

“How do you boil water _without_ magic?” TenTen hissed, looking alarmed.

Neji had no answer.

“I will delay no further! Ready, Neji?!”

Neji looked at the iron kettle, looked back up at Lee. He opened his mouth-

“BEGIN!” Lee screamed, making several natives stop and stare.

He didn’t hear his friends’ protests, already dashing down the street, dodging the slow moving denizens of Suna.

————

He won his game of bartering in record time, coming up with an outrageously high amount! He was getting so _good_ at this!

The shopkeepers, apparently impressed by his prowess laid a tin of candies across the top of Lee’s three-man-eating-contest basket of dumplings, eying his orange legwarmers and triumphantly flushed face.

Lee thanked them profusely for their generosity, which, apparently, was also unusual in Suna.

(It wasn’t like it was that much more acceptable in Konoha for you to fling your arms around a stranger but _still_.)

The shopkeepers were a pair of elderly ladies who might have been sisters or might have been a couple. But the one who Lee hugged made sure he got the tin of candies and smiled at him from a maze of wrinkles-

At least...he was fairly sure they were old ladies.

Suna’s clothing was loose and formless to take advantage of the breezes. Another reason Lee tearing off into the middle of the town with no head protection in his sleek, vibrantly green suit was a picture of the spirit of youth!

It wouldn’t have made a dent on his gratitude if they were a very different couple.

It certainly was good to be doing something you loved with someone you had a close bond with!

It made Lee feel warmer inside than the hot day did.

Such Bonds were admirable!

He would have to find something with TenTen and Neji tomorrow to refill the tin of candies with to repay the delightful shopkeepers of indeterminate gender or relation for their kindness!

————

One moment Lee was laughing, daydreaming of gifts, striving with all his might to succeed at his self-imposed challenge.

The next everything went pitch black, like someone had snuffed out the sun.

————

For a moment even _his_ youthful heart was overtaken with panic.

Before he remembered his training.

————

Lee stopped dead in the street, and flexed his hands, cursing his weakness to illusions. He took a deep breath in.

It wasn’t just as if the sun had gone out.

There were lanterns on the sides of the shops in the bazaar. Many of them were bespelled to light at sundown. They hadn’t lit.

Lee waved a hand in front of his face.

Nothing.

“Hello?” He asked, hearing shuffling, a stumble. Somewhere to the right a small child began to whimper.

Lee’s breathing accelerated.

“Can anyone else see?”

He heard a whisper.

Everything around him was still but he thought he could hear fumbling.

Ah. If it was an illusion there was one way to find out for sure!

He breathed in, centering himself.

What would Gai-sensei do in this situation?

_Lee, my precious student, in Times Like these you’ve got to find your inner light!_

“My inner light! Yes of course! Thank you, Gai-sensei!” Lee shouted into the dark air.

Lee inhaled, planting his hands on his hips.

“Is everyone alright?!” He asked more loudly.

The whimpering child got a little louder. He could hear the rustle of people.

“Ah! _I know!_” Lee cried.

There was one way to determine if this was an illusion or not.

Lee unshouldered his basket of dumplings and undid the top of his knapsack.

He could already see the flickers of light inside as he drew out his everburning lantern.

“All _Right_!” Lee shouted, punching the air and catching an awning by accident. “This is not an illusion! It is merely a profane and magical darkness!”

He beamed at the flames inside his lantern.

The villagers did not look impressed. More like bewildered by the flickering light.

Gai-sensei would be pleased to know his flames were protection against more than just the shadows of the Nara forest. Possibly it hasn’t occurred to him that they never went out, and Lee had never felt right disposing of them.

His home in Konoha was _filled_ with little pots of Gai-sensei’s mighty flames, which burned without heat—green when Lee touched them, multicolored when they were held within a glass case like his lantern, pulsing with gentle, hypnotic iridescence. Green and pink and gold and every color in between.

His teacher’s magic was surely mighty!

Light caught in the eyes of people around him as they shuffled away.

“Do not be afraid!” Lee shouted, shouldering both packs and raising his lantern, “I have light! I am from the Land of Fire! Is everyone unharmed?”

He finally located the whimpering child, tucked behind the corner of a stall and crouched beside them.

“Are you alright?”

The child wept and said something in the wind tongue Lee couldn’t translate.

”Oh. Uhm...”

The shopkeeper rounded the edge of the stall.

“Do you speak Ifran? Please! Does anyone know what has happened to this child?”

“I speak a little.” The carpet salesman said, eying Lee warily.

“Oh! _Thank you!_”

“Daughter was left. Missing Mother.” The man puts together with the laborious effort of a person not proficient with another language.

“Oh no! That is _terrible_!” Lee exclaimed.

The shopkeeper was looking stern however, making a hushing noise.

The girl didn’t seem able to stop, stifling little choking sobs. She couldn’t have been older than _five_.

The shopkeeper hissed for silence again. Lee was a little annoyed by that. She was young! And upset! Did the people of Suna really expect no one to feel?!

Against the gasps and mumbled protests of several, Lee scooped up the little girl in a hug.

She made a noise of panic, raising her fists. The shopkeeper also seemed alarmed until Lee patted her back and made shushing noises of his own.

“There there! It is alright! We will face this great darkness together!”

The little girl just seemed startled by his sunny smile, dazzled by the closeness of the lantern. The tears stopped, possibly also out of shock. Lee wiped them with a thumb as gently as he could.

“Do not be afraid! It is only darkness! What is your name?”

The shopkeeper muttered something that made the girl seem to hesitate. She shook her head, sticking a thumb in her mouth.

“No? Yes of course! I have not introduced myself first! I am Rock Lee! I am a mage from the land of fire here on vacation with my beautiful and talented companions and my powerful but absent teacher!”

The little girl stared uncomprehending and squeaked when he picked her up, propping her weight on his hip like one of Gai-sensei’s great training boulders.

“If only they were here right now! Surely TenTen and Neji could get to the bottom of this mystery most quickly!”

The shopkeeper looked alarmed as Lee pointed with his lantern.

“Right! I challenge myself to reunite you with your mother within five minutes or I shall do one thousand squat jumps!”

“_Sorry_-“ the Carpetman said, raising his hands and bowing, babbling something panicked in Akadi. “Put child- put _back_-“

Lee flung out his arm

“Anyone who wishes to be taken to safety and not left in this darkness may follow me! I will go slowly!”

Someone whispered something that sounded questioning to the carpet salesman.

He didn’t catch much of the response except for the word “fire”.

The child he carried had begun squirming.

“No?”

Lee rearranged her in the blink of an eye so her legs were on his shoulders and she could sit on his basket of dumplings-

“Ah! I forgot about my challenge with Neji and TenTen!” Lee exclaimed, nearly hitting himself in the head with his lantern as he clamped both hands over his face.

Well.

That was going to be five hundred laps around the city for sure.

Lee gripped a fist while the little girl held onto a fistful of his hair with each hand for dear life.

“I must not fail my second challenge!” Lee punches the air in front of him with his lantern swinging wildly. “All of those who wish to leave this darkness follow meeeeee!”

————

He had to double back twice and take people by the hand before many would follow him. Some just shrank back into doorways or shook their heads.

He wrapped many hands about his basket so people wouldn’t get lost, shuffling in a little knot towards the palace.

As he got closer he could see and hear wind mages trying to counterspell the darkness.

One with a great serpent summon the pale color of moonlight was playing a flute that seemed to give off silvery light, dancing notes that illuminated and sparked.

One hooded man with a painted face was muttering over a great sputtering blue flame in a bowl.

Both seemed surprised to see Lee’s lantern, which was more radiant than either of their attempts at counterspelling.

“Ah! Wind Mages! Wonderful!”

The child gave a cry, holding up her hands.

The serpent changed, shedding skin and turning into a woman with long dark hair who took and wrapped the girl tightly in her arms.

“Excellent!”

Lee held a thumbs up while the child babbled to her mother.

There was something Lizardlike in the woman’s painted eyes, expressionless. Slit pupils in a yellow eye.

“I will certainly bring more villagers to you! You seem to be on top of things!” Lee exclaimed, unshouldering his basket of dumplings.

“Who the hell are you?” The woman with the flute asked, staring openly.

The man with the bowl of fire had also stopped. He had too many hands under his cloak, like a spider.

Lee beamed and shot an even more enthusiastic thumbs up.

“I am Rock Lee! A mage of the land of fire, and I am here-“ he posed, “-on vacation!”

The serpent woman smiled, the expression a little too thin and eerie to be human. Her eyes fixed on the lantern, and then on him.

“If it is not too much trouble I will gladly leave these villagers in your care while I find more! Who knows what awful things have occurred within this terrible darkness!”

“_Of course_,” purred the Snake Woman. Her voice was very low and smooth, Lee thought in wonder. She spoke _perfect_ Ifran. “You can bring us as many villagers as you like. They must be frightened.”

“Thank you very much!” Lee said, unshouldering his basket. “You may help yourself to my dinner! Please do not hesitate to comfort one another!”

“No,” purred the snake woman, still holding her child, rocking her slightly while the child clung to her robes, face buried in the long crook of her neck, “Thank _you_.”

————

Lee must have easily spent an hour combing the city for frightened people, bringing them to the cluster of mages by the palace door.

Reinforcements from the palace seemed to have come, because when Lee came back, a fire had been set up and a pot of stew was on, the ladle of it stirring without oversight.

He didn’t see the snake woman or the child, but several other sand Mages seemed to have taken over.

Lee went out a third time to find people and bring them to the patch of light by the palace door. Then a fourth.

He was getting lost less in the darkness now. Though he didn’t like the way his lantern felt dimmer each time he drew close to the palace and brighter when it was away.

It was probably his imagination, but it seemed to get dimmer every time he came back.

————

There was a rustling atop one of the taller buildings of the city on his fourth trip into the city proper. Lee waved around his light trying to get a good look. He thought the rustle sounded like feathers.

“Do not be afraid!” He called. “Unless you are the villain causing this attack! I have brought light- ah! _Temari-San_!” He said just in time, recognizing the three glowing moons.

A gust stopped short of him, ruffling his hair and stinging his cheeks slightly. He squinted and rubbed his eyes, staring up at the enormous creature.

The spread three moons of the tails and wings folded down and down and down again into the shape of a woman with a sharp, hooked nose, and sharper blue eyes, holding the Fan of the Four Winds, one moon still cautiously spread, glowing cold white light in the darkness.

“What?” Temari squinted back at him. “What are _you_ doing here?” She barked, snapping Lee’s spine to attention.

He bowed hastily at the waist, bouncing cold dumplings around in his basket. (The villagers had returned most of them for some reason. Possibly because they were cold by now. Even cold, Lee was rather enjoying them. Rescuing people was hard and hungry work!)

“I apologize profusely, Temari-San! I thought the villagers might be in danger in the great darkness! I am glad to see you are assisting as well!”

Lee could heard the bone ribs of her fan snap efficiently shut. According to TenTen they were real bones.

The Fan of the Four Winds was a Greater Item. A _legend_.

But for someone chosen by a Greater Item there were very few stories of Suna’s young General, Temari of the Four Winds.

Lee would love to hear them all if he could, eager to know. Great Item affinities were beyond rare.

The last Greater Item wielder in Konoha had been _Sakumo of the White Fang_! And it was said he’d been on the level of the Legendary Sannin! The Great Toad Sage of the Two Worlds, Jiraya! The Great Sphinx who could stop death, Tsunade! And the Infamous Orochimaru, a Naga who Sought the Secrets of the Immortal Body!

But Gai-sensei had spoken more sharply to them than Lee thinks he’d ever heard before or since to pay attention to the mission, and so he’d never heard TenTen explain what made Sakumo of the White Fang so powerful or legendary while a mere human. And he hears even less about Temari of the Four Winds.

“That’s not what I meant, what are you _doing_ here?” Temari snaps.

Her eyes fixed on his glowing lantern cutting through the magic darkness, and even by lanternlight her color drained, hissing a whisper of, “Where did you get _those_?”

There aren’t many things that can shake Temari. Lee’s seen her turn her great fan into a cloak and shift into a Roc by the light of the full moon before this, wings as vast as half a dozen houses. It’s probably only a _fragment_ of her actual magic because it’s rumored her Wind Magic rivals Suna’s High Mage’s fearsome combination nature, and Lee’s seen Gaara’s magic about as Up-close as one can possibly get and still live to tell the tale.

His hand and foot _buzz_ as if in memory and Lee’s spine itches like a great twisting riddle.

Temari’s staring with more naked emotion than he thinks he’s ever seen on the whole of her severe, pretty face, dark blue eyes gone wide at his ever-burning lantern that cuts light even through the supernatural darkness.

It stops, he notices, most abruptly, casting the front half of Temari’s Black-robed body into light and leaving the rest in shadow. A perfect radius.

Lee smiles at her in would-be reassurance.

“What? Oh! This is a gift from my unsurpassable teacher! But that is not important! Are you alright? -Ah! Is that Kankuro-San?”

“Kankuro, it’s _Lee_,” Temari snaps into the dark, eyes still gleaming like a hawk’s.

The twin needles jutting into Lee’s back with the subtlest pressure withdraw with the soft noise of wood sliding along wood as the darkness around him folds back, revealing the softer blackness of the sandstone village. The only hint Lee had that he was encased half by the dome was the stillness of the air and the quiet.

He beams.

“You have both become so much more powerful! Have you come to help the village as well, Kankuro-san?”

Lee feels a shape settle behind him.

“What’s _Lee_ doing in Suna?” The Black magician’s nasal voice cuts through the dark.

Temari doesn’t answer. She still doesn’t trust him, Lee realizes, raising his hands.

“It is really me! I was on a heartfelt quest with my teammates when we were separated by this darkness! It is surely not natural!”

“No shit,” the voice shifts to his left and Kankuro of the Nine Lives mutters, finally stepping into the light, the soft almost-soundless noise of wooden joints withdrawing from all around Lee as his other bodies crawl back into the lump of bandages on his back, winding up on itself like a chrysalis.

It’s a dark art, what Kankuro does, Lee reflects, waiting patiently to see if Kankuro’s Head starts rotating or he starts cackling, or doing any of the things Necromancers do in stories. But no, he’s just standing there as slouched as ever, slightly sweating under the weight of his puppets and his heavy makeup that makes him look like a corpse, or maybe like a puppet himself in the flickering yellow light of the lantern.

He doesn’t actually know for sure that the Kankuro standing in front of him _isn’t_ one of the puppets.

But if he can’t raise such a darkness it must surely be something powerful indeed!

Everything Lee hears about the Nine Lives masters tells him each puppet body was once a _person_, and that Nine isn’t a hard limit. Some do more, some do less. Kankuro doesn’t look like an all-powerful dark-magic user, even with his black-covered body half melted into the darkness, and his power is certainly nothing like Temari’s transformation, though it’s powerful and useful in its own way.

Lee hasn’t actually seen all nine of Kankuro’s bodies. He knows there are nine because of his title. Nine is the number of a fully-fledged Puppetmaster.

Lee also knows they can’t be far apart in age, which, technically, probably means Kankuro’s a genius, even if he’s the least powerful of the three siblings by far.

Sometimes Lee wonders if Kankuro’s real body is even alive anymore either, and shivers to himself.

The Wind Country is truly full of great wonders and magic, and Temari and Kankuro both walk in the shadows of gods, but apparently fire is more rare than he thought because Kankuro’s painted eyes squint, then widen like his sister’s.

“Can you prove you’re you?” Temari demands.

Lee hesitates.

“How would I even do such a thing? Ah! Wait!”

Lee inhales, focuses and bursts through his first gate.

“Mm. Yeah. Not buying it. Leaf illusion and all.” Kankuro mutters. “Sorry.”

Lee exhales and lets the gate close again with a grimace and a flicker of pain. The lantern flickers in his hand, and Kankuro seems distracted.

“Hey. Are those _Phoenix plumes? _Like...real Phoenix plumes?_”_

Lee is not a good liar by any means but he’s not nearly as stupid as most people seem to think he is.

He shoots Temari and Kankuro a thumbs up as the lantern heats in his hands.

“Oh? I suppose you are right!”

He watches them both stare at him in absolute disbelief and just a budding flicker of _fear_, because a man that can take down a Phoenix must have magic even the great Mages of Suna must be wary of.

————

The truth is, Gai-sensei is a great teacher. And a great Mage. It’s _quite_ possible he could master a Phoenix.

If anyone could, anyway, it would be Gai-Sensei!

Lee thinks he’ll forgive him the slight untruth, begs his forgiveness in his mind.

————

Gai-sensei overlooks many things. Some more deliberately than others.

In his head Lee apologizes anyway.

————

He’s sure at least that it isn’t what the Wind Mages Think!

It cannot be!

Gai-sensei is mighty but he is also most gentle!

Their people tend to see the world in terms of fighting, and struggle.

They’re probably processing all the ways they know in which the plumes of a phoenix are weapons, or at the least, sources of _power_. If that’s what they are at all.

Lee never asked questions when his teacher produced flames to guide him home.

Gai-sensei hadn’t _needed_ to give him anything, really, he could have sent him on his way with normal flame to count the shadows of the Nara wood by and stay on the true path.

But he didn’t.

He’d entrusted this magic to Lee.

And Lee had interpreted that as being trusted to care for it.

————

Lee was expecting to help fight some great evil that made darkness, not try to rationalize his great sensei’s fondness for him which went beyond understanding at the best of times.

The truth is, he doesn’t even know where to begin.

A punch, a kick, an enemy to battle are all straightforward things. Those he understands.

Lee is a straightforward sort, and this feels..._complicated_.

He doesn’t _like_ complicated.

————

“Who the Hell sold you Pheonix plumes in Suna?” Kankuro demands before he can say anything, painted eyes narrow.

“N-No one! I brought them with me!”

Both siblings exchange a look. They say nothing. Truly their rapport is amazing!

“It is not what you think!” Lee stammers, lantern still casting eternal flame light over the sands, rendering both the sand Mages hawk-like features sharper. “I did not purchase them! They are a gift from Gai-sensei!”

Both just frown at him.

“...They’re _illegal_.” Temari says flatly.

“I dunno. Kind of comes in handy.” Kankuro mutters under his breath.

Lee’s belly sinks like a stone.

“I- I am so sorry! I did not _know_-“ he starts to apologize.

“Nah. Don’t sweat it. Turned out alright. Just maybe don’t go waving eternal flame around in our village,” the puppeteer says, waving his hand, fingertips leaving blue afterimages in the air. “Otherwise we’d probably have to run you out.”

“Or run him through,” Temari murmurs.

Kankuro snorts. “Nah. I have _some_ standards.” He mutters under his breath.

Lee thinks he sees the General roll her eyes.

“I did not mean to break a law of the land! Were it not for the spell around us, I would hand these materials over immediately into your care!”

“_Don’t_,” Temari murmurs, drawing back half a step when he outstretches his arm with the lantern.

Lee withdraws the lantern.

————

He thinks he ought to start at the beginning.

————

But after this battle. No! There is no time to waste in stories when the Wind kingdom is clearly under attack!

He must apologize for bringing something illegal into the city when the danger is past!

“Well....Only the real you would probably be dumb enough to bring something that dangerous into our town so maybe it’s really you.” Kankuro mutters, “But it doesn’t mean someone didn’t plant it on you so you’d help with the attack. You see where we’re going with that, yeah?”

Lee brightened and shot him a thumbs up.

“I do! Thank you for your trust! I propose that we join forces to combat this great evil!”

“_Uh_.” Kankuro says in response, looking at his sister.

Temari says nothing at all. They seem to be communicating through depth of frowning. Surely siblings are wonderful things!

Lee reaches into his lantern.

“_Hey_-“ Kankuro starts, Magic sparking in his fingertips with a flinch.

“It is alright! Gai-sensei says the element of fire may only be given! Whatever you have heard, I can assure you they will only harm you if you try to take them! Defeating this foe will be easier if we may combat the darkness together!”

Kankuro blinks.

Temari does nothing.

Lee’s warming to his subject now.

“Gai-sensei says that when freely given, the will of fire guides and warms through the darkest of places, and that is why the Leaf can live in the Great Forest at all! So please! Let me share this thing with you so that we may combat this great enemy of darkness together and when the fight is over I will gladly surrender such illegal materials over to the authorities of Suna and accept any consequence!”

“Yeahhhh, no? It’s no big deal.” Kankuro mutters, looking uncomfortable, but his eyes fix to the flames in something like hunger anyway, which just makes Lee more eager.

When the fire comes into Lee’s hands it goes from yellow to bright and green. It doesn’t even singe his wraps. It doesn’t even generate heat. The light always feels like nothing in his hand. Weightless as a feather. Which, he supposes, according to Suna’s Mages here, is _exactly_ what this is.

When it passes to Kankuro the plume of flame flares purple in his black-gloved palm. It casts little light, and seems to dazzle.

The look of interest in the puppeteer’s eyes is a little scary, even though Lee tells himself it’s _rude_ to find their Sand Allies unsettling.

“..._Huh_.” Kankuro says, waving it experimentally.

“Temari-san?”

Temari shakes her head.

“I can’t touch those.”

Kankuro finally tears his eyes away from the fire in his fingers.

“Oh. _Yeah_.”

Lee’s face falls.

“What? I do not understand! Why not?”

Kankuro snorts, then raises his hands when his sister shoots him a glare.

“Only _you_ could ask that question because you don’t have magic,” Temari sighs. But something in her shoulders seems to have relaxed anyway.

“Huh. Guess you’re right. Right. So. It would be _bad_?” Kankuro says, like he’s talking to a very dumb child, passing flame from hand to hand, the purple light flickering reflected in his eyes. And Kankuro _really_ hates children. He’s said as much even to Lee and Lee doesn’t know him well at all. “Temari’s got a crazy strong wind element and fire’d burn right through it. Especially a magic flame like this.”

“_Oh_. But you-?”

“I’m different,” Kankuro grins, so Lee wonders if it’s flesh he’s looking at or something else. “You could say I’m _patchwork_. Little bits of four elements not quite anything. Kind of like your girlfriend, the Space Witch.”

“Oh! TenTen is not-!”

“Nah?” Kankuro’s grin brightens. “She chose that Prissy _Seer_ over you?”

“Actually, She is not-“

He’s interrupted when Kankuro feeds a trickle of flickering blue magic from a fingertip into the flame and it flares up like a small sun. “_Yeow_-!”

Temari scoffs at her brother blowing on his fingers.

“I thought you said these things were _safe_!” Kankuro yelled.

“They have never done that to me!” Lee protested back.

They haven’t. Not _ever_!

Kankuro tries with his magic and makes another inhuman noise, jerking his fingers back.

“No. They wouldn’t,” Temari mutters, appraising him in a new, strange way, raising her chin. “...Pick it up.”

“What?”

Temari tilts her head, birdlike, and somehow cold.

“The feather Kankuro dropped. Pick it up.”

Lee bends. It’s a little irritating when Temari and Kankuro act like nobles, but he isn’t sure a peasant nobody like him can really be too upset.

The flame burns green again when his fingers touch the plume, shifting back to purple as he sets it back in Kankuro’s hand.

Even the puppeteer’s frowning now.

“I don’t get it, what’s the big deal?” Kankuro grumbles, waving the flame experimentally. Still purple. Still seeming to burn an afterimage in the air.

“Well you’ve always been as dumb as you look,” Temari mutters back at him.

“Soooooo pretty sharp then?” Kankuro counters.

“When this is over, give the feather back to Lee.”

“Huh? _Why_?”

Temari shoots her brother a look, then to Lee’s surprise, turns and bows to him.

“Thank you for your help, Rock Lee of the Leaf, but this is a threat to the Country of Wind and the Wind takes care of its own. Once we find Gaara and get to the bottom of this, we will discuss payment.”

“There is really no need-“ Lee begins, ready to say Gaara’s a _friend_ and he’s suddenly just as concerned for him as the others before his mind catches up with what he’s heard. “Gaara-san’s _missing_?”

Temari says nothing, but her thin eyebrows draw together slightly.

“oi, Temari, Why not let Lee tag along? That speed of his could come in handy-“

The feather in Kankuro’s hand flares.

“_Ow_-!”

Lee catches the plume this time before it falls to the ground, watching Kankuro suck on his singed fingers.

“What the _Hell_,” the puppetmaster mutters, staring at the burning green flame in Lee’s hand that doesn’t even warm him.

Temari shoots her brother a glare.

“At this rate we might have no choice but to rely on him because you can’t keep your focus pure for ten seconds.”

“Huh? What’s _that_ supposed to mean?” Kankuro’s drawl pitches into almost a whine.

Temari fixes Lee with a hawk stare.

“I, Sabaku no Temari, Vessel of the Eternal Wind propose a contract with Rock Lee, Keeper of the Sacred Flame. I will do him no harm, and will fight as one power with him until I see my youngest brother safe, this I swear by blood and breath. Do you accept?”

Lee stares at her.

“_Uhm_...”

Kankuro stared at his sister too.

“Well shit you really want to go full blood oath?” He breathes out.

The look Temari gives her brother back is too complex for Lee to read.

“That is really not necessary!” Lee protests. “If it is troublesome I would be more than happy to hold the lantern!”

Temari is quiet for a very long time.

Kankuro frowns at her back, “Yeah? Okay? Tag along then?” He says, clearly not understanding her glare. He holds out a hand.

Lee squeezes it, smiling at him, ignoring the jerk the other gives, squeezing his fingers more tightly.

“Do not worry, Kankuro-San! I promise will keep you safe! I know that you do not favor close range spellwork-“

“_No_! Just give me the damn feather you bug-eyed weirdo!”

“Ah...Are you certain?”

“Yeah! I’ve _got it_!”

Lee lets go on Kankuro’s hand.

He shakes it out muttering under his breath about grip and ‘delicate instruments of magic’.

The plume glows like a purple torch in the black magician’s fingers as he shoulders his bandages and they both hop to catch up with Temari.

————

It isn’t tricky figuring out what the problem is.

Both siblings seem to have an uncanny sense of where their brother is.

(“Easy,” Kankuro snorts, half-bragging half-sneering, “Gaara’s the biggest arcane source in the city. Even animals can sense it. They’re too scared to come near the village.”

“Even pets?” Lee asks, curious.

Kankuro pauses, face falling as he thinks.

“_Yes_,” Temari says, not elaborating.

“Shit. Yeah. I forgot about that,” Kankuro says, also not elaborating, both of them clearly recalling some private and unpleasant adventure.

“That must be very difficult since Temari-San is a bird!”

“Since she’s a _What_?”)

The trouble comes when they actually _find_ Gaara.

By Phoenix Light it’s impossible to tell the darkness is intensifying, but sure enough, Gaara’s at the heart of the spell.

Kankuro wrinkles his nose at the spherical mound in the middle of the courtyard.

“Ugh. That’s a _nasty_ piece of magic. What do you think, Temari?”

“Scarab Curse,” Temari says, oddly hushed. “Mixed with greater darkness.”

“Mm Yeah. I figured that too. They must have sealed him in, the bastards.”

“What...does that mean?” Lee ventures.

Kankuro makes a noise through his nose, rubbing the hooked bridge of it.

“A Scarab seal eats magic. Type of thing you’d put on a building. Warding class magic usually. But they’re using it like a-“ Kankuro pauses. “They have lightning jars in the Leaf?”

Lee blinks blankly at him.

Kankuro’s hopeful expression flattens.

“Right. Okay. So. That spooky darkness spell is feeding off of Gaara,” Kankuro explains like he’s talking to a dumb child again. “The more it eats out of him the bigger and spookier it gets. Shit’s probably spreading like a fog because Gaara’s one hell of a lightning jar.”

Lee _gasps_.

“_No_! Oh _no_! We must do something right away!”

“He _is_ the largest Arcane source in the city,” Temari says darkly. “And we’re his bodyguards.”

“_Ugh_.” Kankuro replies.

The purple flame in Kankuro’s fingers burns brighter, but for once he doesn’t seem to notice, flicking tendrils of magic at the oily black mass of words writhing over Gaara’s Sand Defense.

Lee covers his mouth with a hand.

“How long has Gaara-San been trapped like this? We must rescue him right away!”

“_Long enough_,” Kankuro mutters, Painted eyes narrowing as he surges fresh magic into his lines. The blue-white flicker of raw arcane force slices like a scalpel. He’s trying to peel the magic off with his own. Lee’s never seen such a delicate work of counterspelling. Unlike the Black Magician himself, Kankuro lines are dainty as the legs of a spider. They flick in different directions, applying seemingly on a wish, a whim. Lee watches in fascination as the lines sink in and Kankuro _tugs_, the seething mass of the magic sucking forward like a skin on milk.

Temari grabs her brother’s magic, snapping his lines with a sharp jerk of her hand just before the shadowy words can lick their viper way up to his fingertips.

The dark spell drops without magic to follow, swarming like ants on the ground.

“Don’t _touch_ it!” Temari says, wrenching Kankuro’s wrist back.

“Well I can’t just _sit here!_”

The two of them glare at one another for a moment.

Kanakuro wrenches his arm out of his sister’s grip.

“What is it doing to him?” Lee asks, not liking the tension between them and not liking the way the shell of darkness around Gaara is roiling like a sea. “What is such an awful thing even _for_?”

Temari takes a moment to speak. She sounds like she’s forcing her voice into calm.

“Someone summoned a Scarab Seal without a binding circle.” She makes a face and tosses her head. “Kankuro, you explain it! I’m no good at this kind of thing.”

”Ugh. Why me? Whatever. So. Gaara has a lot of magic but even he has limits. It’ll feed off him until it reaches that limit, then it will look for a new Mage to eat- but that’s not what _gets_ me,” Kankuro grumbles, “you can’t just pull a scarab seal word animation out of your _ass_. It takes _time_. Whoever set this up took the time for it and didn’t care anything about who might get caught up in the village- _Hey! Hold on-!_” Kankuro startles because Lee’s already running, leaps before he can finish his words, fast as a thought.

“_Konoha Whirlwind!_”

Lee’s shin slams into the seal hard enough the entire shell wavers and ripples like a liquid.

“_Idiot_!” Kankuro yells after him, already spooling his magic threads.

Temari stops him with a hand on his black-wrapped chest.

Words splash in patches where Lee’s kicks and punches land. They creep over him, but they just sting a little. Like angry insects. Lee’s felt much worse.

“You’re not doing anything you fucking moron, _get out of there, Lee!_” Kankuro yells.

“Gaara-san!” Lee yells at the unmoving dome, striking at it with a blow that splashes words like angry insects, “Gaara-San you must get out of there! This spell will consume your magic until you _die_! You can not rely on defense alone!”

Something snaps around his ankle, and Kankuro drags him out shaking his lines off. The feather tucked in his belt glows bright purple.

“He can’t hear you- Dammit! Just because you don’t have magic doesn’t mean that shit won’t eat up your lifeforce you _big-hearted Idiot!_” Kankuro snaps. “This is a Sand problem, and the Sand take care of their own! We’ll figure something out!”

“But he will _die_ if I do nothing! I cannot stand by-“

“What do you care? I said it’s not your problem!”

“Because Gaara-San is my _friend_! He fought with all his might to save me! How could I not do the same?!”

And Kankuro _stares_ at him at that. Like nobody’s ever said such a thing.

“He kicked your _ass_!”

“I do not bear a grudge for that! How can I when he is in danger? Surely Gaara-san’s heart will be in greater turmoil still knowing his power has been used against his village!”

Kankuro stares at him harder.

“Give him the fire,” Temari said.

It seems to take a second for Kankuro to snap out of it.

“_Huh_?”

“Neither of us can get close enough. Lee can.” She’s reaching for her fan blue eyes fixing on Lee, “when I tell you to jump, jump as far away from Gaara as you can.”

“But what-“

“Fire purifies.” Temari says, opening the full three moons of her fan with a flourish, the whites of the markings glowing, “wind consumes. If I fan Pheonix flame high enough with my wind it may destroy the curse.”

Kankuro huffs through his nose.

“Yeah and it could destroy us right with it. That’s a _terrible_ idea-“

“There’s no time.”

“Well yeah, but Gaara’s-“

“An Earth Mage.” Temari cuts her brother off again.

“Which means _air_ isn’t-“

“_I won’t cut Gaara._” Temari snaps at him, sharper than Lee’s ever heard her.

Both siblings glare at one another for a long moment, the purple flame in Kankuro’s fingers burning so bright it’s like a flare.

“Fuck it. I’ll pull them _both_ out.” Kankuro growls.

“If that curse _touches_ you-“

“Huh. Funny. It almost sounds like you don’t think I can handle it.”

“_Kankuro_-“

“_Please_!” Lee shouts. “This is not the time to hesitate on our acts of rescue! Gaara-San needs our unity more than ever!”

Both the Sand Mages shift and settle.

Temari raises her fan.

“I’m attaching to you at least, got it, Lee? Try not to fight it.”

“I will just-“

Kankuro’s lines slip and slide along his skin, not making contact.

His eyes narrow, trying again.

The magic slithers along Lee’s skin, not sinking in, not taking hold, like he’s greased.

“What the _Hell_?” Kankuro mutters, frowning.

“Temari-San, I am going right now!” Lee yells, already running, three feathers burning green all up his arm.

Temari raises her fan.

“Kankuro!”

“_Shit_!”

Lee screams as he bursts through his fifth gate and launches himself at the spell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, my name is Skuun, you can hang with me at EgregiousDerp on tumblr and come agree with me that TenTen is built like Chun Li.


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